Riptide
by L. VanDattae
Summary: The merfolk in the bay are bad luck. That's what everyone says. Tim won't believe it, not of the boy who saved his life, but as he becomes more involved with the watery world below the surface and the beautiful witch who knows more than she says, bad luck may be the least of his worries. Characters: Tim, Dick, Jason
1. Undercurrent

******Disclaimer:** All characters are copyright of DC. No monetary profit is being made from the writing or distribution of this fic.**  
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**Chapter 1**

Undercurrent

There was only one the first time. Tim remembered that very clearly. He was seven, clambering around on the rocks that jutted out of the bay like sharp steppingstones. There was no one watching from the house above, perched at the top of a wall of gray rock. Jack was out, and there was no one else to care. Even if there had been, they wouldn't have seen, not with the house's multifaceted eyes blinded by drawn shades. So there was no one to come running, no one to notice at all when an unexpected wave knocked him flat into the roiling surf. The shocking cold tore a startled gasp from his throat, then everything was drowned in white-capped foam and the roar of the surf sucking away from the rocks. It was thunder, crashing down all around him, rolling over him. Arms and legs tumbled helplessly, and unable to keep his head above the towering swells, the endless, head-on rush of waves dragged him under.

It wasn't always so turbulent—sometimes the water rippled seductively as silk—but the wind was fierce in the bright sky that day, sharp with the promise of storms to come, and it thrashed the waves against the shore. Out by the rocky points, the water was deep, dropping down into storm-carved stone basins, and the current took Tim with it, sucking him down. Salt stung his eyes, burned his nose, and he choked, air bubbles escaping all at once. He could see the air above him, beyond the foam-capped barrier that seemed progressively farther away. He could see it—bright streams of sunlight breaking the surface above, turning the sea an aquamarine blue—but he couldn't reach it. There was too much water pressing him down, rolling over him.

Then something glittered off to his right, a blue shimmer catching streams of light, and there was another boy in the water, swimming toward him. Wisps of black hair floated around brilliant blue eyes as the older boy drew closer. Tim remembered that too, despite the hazy, oxygen-less film that clogged those memories in the water. He remembered that startling blue, and the way the boy smiled as much with his eyes as with his mouth.

The thunder of the waves above fell away. In its place, there was a deafening silence, as though even sound had been crushed down and forgotten, like everything lost in the depths. It was fitting that it should be in that place where lost things lived, suspended in space, he should have such an impossible meeting. Impossible, because there couldn't possibly have been anyone else down there.

Addled as he was, it took Tim a second to realize the boy was mouthing something, like _It's okay_ or _Hold on_. Then strong arms wrapped around him, lifting him up, breaking him free of the current that had him trapped. The light got brighter, closer—he could almost feel it. Then, finally, the water fell away, and he sucked in air, filling his lungs. The roar and crash of waves once again pounded at him, but it felt good, better than being below them, and with those strong arms under him, wrapping around him supportively, it also felt safe. His rescuer half lifted him, half pushed him up onto a shallow rock, still choking and gasping. He caught at the crags with numb fingers, entire body heaving as the last dredges of seawater were dispelled from his lungs. As he regained strength, the supporting hand on his back started to slip away.

"Wait!" Tim whipped around, scrabbling for purchase when the motion nearly dislodged him from his rock, but the strange boy was already disappearing silently back under the surface. It was only then, with the brilliant sun backlighting him in the water, glittering off a myriad of blue scales, that Tim saw the fins. Beautiful blue fins like fine gauze.

Even blinking blearily through salt-sore eyes, that was the image that would stick with him for years.

The whole experience should have frightened him, should have made him a little more cautious in his explorations. If anything though, it had the opposite effect. If he'd known, Jack might have been a bit worried when, for the next month, Tim would run out into the water on the edge of the deep pools and stick his head under the surface looking for mermaids. There were never any around, not the smallest glimmer under the waves, and as the days wore on he began to despair of ever seeing his rescuer again.

But he never forgot, and he never stopped looking.

* * *

It was Jack who planted the idea one day when Tim came home sopping wet for the fifth time in a row.

"No, no, no," Jack said, and Tim halted guiltily in his tracks, daring to slide a sideways glance at the man standing above him on the second-story landing. "You're getting water everywhere." The puddle at his feet inched a little wider under the scrutiny. Tim curled his toes and tried to look as repentant as possible.

"Honestly, Tim, why do you have to go down there so often? It's dangerous! I've already lost your mother to that ocean, and now the Lasky's child disappearing and half the town blaming it on merfolk and strange marks..." Jack sighed, leaning against the banister. "That witch certainly isn't helping matters, going on about them the way she is. The last thing I need is you down there, _looking_ for the forsaken creatures!"

"Witch?" Tim asked, perking up.

"Now don't you go getting ideas. She's a snobbish old thing, holed up in that house of hers more often than not—if you can call that old thing a house, what with all those–" Perhaps realizing that this conversation was not going at all where he wanted, Jack stopped mid-sentence, scowling. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go get dried off!" Tim didn't have to be told twice. He scurried the rest of the way across the floor and into the bathroom.

Of course, the reprimand did nothing to dim his anticipation at the prospect of talking to someone else who might know something about the merfolk, witch or not.

* * *

It didn't take Tim long to pick out a day Jack was safely off on business to sneak out of the house. The merfolk in the bay were something of a sore subject around town. Half the townspeople thought speaking of the creatures brought bad luck, and the other half thought they were to blame for empty nets and summer storms and backed-up pipes. It was no use talking to anyone about the merfolk. But they were all willing to talk about the witch and the nest she called a house.

That was all Tim needed.

He didn't have much trouble finding the witch's home—if he had any at all, it was because it blended so well with a stand of trees just off the bay, removed a good distance from the neon lights of the town. It was a small cabin, or it had been, now weathered and dilapidated and held together more by the vines that wrapped around its entirety. Salal and Huckleberry bushes shouldered close to the outer walls, as if the forest was literally growing up the sides. Through the sheets of ivy that hung across the open door, Tim could just make out bits of the room beyond. Glass tanks crusted windowsills and tabletops and every other conceivable surface, full of Feather Ferns and Maiden's Hair and plants Tim had never seen before.

The woman sitting cross-legged in a chair at the table wasn't what he had expected. She had long, auburn hair, tied up with strands of pearls and decorated with a crimson spiral shell. Green, high-heeled boots clung to her feet and wrapped up around her calves.

Realizing that he was hovering awkwardly outside the door, Tim reached up to sweep the vines aside, attention on the woman beyond. He didn't immediately realize there was anything wrong when the vines caught around his wrist instead like leafy green manacles, thinking he'd simply snarled them. Surprised, he tried gently shaking his wrists free from the foliage. It didn't work. Neither did jerking on them. It only made matters worse. The harder he tried to jerk himself loose, the more the vines pulled back, until they had him stretched up on his toes, hopelessly tangled. It was only then, with little creepers running in spirals down his arms and into his hair, that he fully appreciated the mess he'd walked into. More coiled possessively around his midriff, up under his shirt. Tim squirmed under the assault.

It was the witch who finally came to his rescue.

"None of that now, he's a guest." A flick of her eyes—emerald eyes, startlingly green—was all it took for the vines wrapping around his arms to unwind. "Why don't you offer him a seat?" No sooner had his feet touched the ground than those same creepers began herding him forward, coiling warningly against his lower back. There was no going back at that point, so Tim took the hint before they could start dragging him and sat down in the chair he was offered. It, too, was crusted with vines, twined around the backrest's spindles and curling around the arms. There were little leaves sticking out from under the seat.

"Are you the witch?" he asked, when a minute passed and she showed no sign of abandoning her task. She wasn't what he'd expected, certainly not old like Jack had made her out. She looked beautiful and young, from the tips of her lacquered fingernails to the high arch of an eyebrow.

"Call me Ivy." At last she looked up, truly turning to face him for the first time, and Tim didn't like the sudden spark of interest that lit her emerald eyes. He felt suddenly like a bug—a particularly interesting bug—tangled in a woody web, and the spider had just noticed him.

"Well, aren't you a pretty one?" The sharp tips of her fingernails slid along his jaw thoughtfully, caught under his chin to urge him to lean forward, closer to those appraising eyes. "Yes, you'll do juuuust fine." Tim had no doubt that if she wanted to, she could wrap him up on the spot—tie her vines so tightly around him that he'd be nothing but a living cocoon. The sinister rattle of leaves rustling around under his seat didn't help. Then, just as suddenly, she turned away, back to the aquarium and the feathery plant she'd been babying. "What is it you want?"

"Tell me about the mermaids in the bay. Do they really steal children?"

"Mermaids." She mused for a moment over something in the water. "Stories, is that all? I will _not_ be made a source of entertainment for you and your friends. If that's it, you'd better run back home, little boy." Tim shook his head frantically.

"Not stories. The truth. I met one." At Ivy's skeptical glance, he continued. "I fell into the bay. One of them pulled me out."

"What did it look like?" she asked, still seemingly unimpressed. Tim started to describe the boy, his eyes, his hair, the way he remembered blue scales in the sunlight, but Ivy cut him off impatiently. "His shoulders. Was there anything on his shoulders?" Tim tried to think back, to remember if there'd been anything. Something about the way the light had hit him…

"Yes. There was some kind of silver mark. I didn't get a good look."

"So you did see one." He had her attention now, the full weight of those green eyes. The little plant in the aquarium waved its feathery tendrils in the water, temporarily forgotten. "And you came to me. How fortuitous."

She believed him. Somehow that alone seemed to take a weight off his shoulders. Someone believed him. He wasn't alone.

"But I haven't seen him again. I've looked and looked."

"Useless. They don't interact with humans."

"I want to talk to him, at least thank him."

"But you can." She smiled, a wickedly knowing smile, hushing him with two fingers against his lips when he leaned forward excitedly. "Now that's better. I can work with this." The hand at his mouth moved to brush feather-like over the lashes of one eye before burrowing thoughtfully in his hair—touches Tim bore with a measure of patience. Her voice grew distant. "Perfect. Just the same coloring. I wonder… He does seem to have a thing for adoption." Something in the way she touched him, looked at him, made Tim feel like a mirror—a mirror in which she saw someone else. Perhaps sensing his confusion, she smiled more reassuringly. "I'm going to help you meet this rescuer of yours. I'm going to show you how to get his attention." Reaching back into the aquarium, she pulled a gold piece from the bottom Tim had initially thought decorative and pressed it into his palm.

"This will help me see him again?" Tim asked, skeptical. It was just a coin. A little wet, a little cold, but nothing special.

"Hush. You wanted to thank him, right? Put that where he'll find it. And if it's seeing him again, I don't think you'll have to worry about that." She muttered something about having a type.

Tim nodded and pushed the coin into his pocket. He started to stand, to thank her, but one of the vines wrapped suddenly taught around his arm. Ivy pushed off her chair to crouch in front of him, hand going to cover the vine. Those green eyes riveted to his.

"Promise me you'll come back. Come talk to me about your little mermaid friend. I want to hear all about it." Her fingers slid under the leafy manacle encircling his arm, carefully coaxing it free.

"Yes." The word came out slow, uncertain.

"It's a promise. Now one last thing…" She leaned forward, free hand going to cup the back of his neck and keep him from leaning away. A jolt of panic raced down his spine before fizzling out. He should have felt trapped, should have been worried she was so close, but with the breath of her words fanning against his skin, he felt only… dizzy. "My payment." Then her lips sealed against his in an acidic kiss that ate away at the world until there was nothing left but distant intentions, like stars far off in the darkness. The dizziness pitched high into acute vertigo, and he was falling, falling forever, but he couldn't move to save himself. He stood paralyzed by Ivy's touch, the pull of her poisonous lips, the feel of her tongue on his, a discomfort he couldn't escape. He could feel the points of her fingertips pressing against the vertebrae at his nape and the brush of creepers sliding across his shoulders, curling in his hair—could feel them, but do nothing. They pressed up against his back, steadying him for Ivy's pleasure as she took what she wanted. He might've blacked out for a second. It was the only way to explain that worrying lapse. When he came around, Ivy was smiling down at him, a hand tight around his upper arm to keep him on his feet.

"Careful now," she said, steadying him as the vines withdrew and he took a shaky step backward. He blinked, taking in the aquarium-lined counters and cabin walls, remembering where he was and how he got there. The kiss had only lasted a few seconds, but he'd somehow lost days.

"I'm sorry. I should go." He put a hand to his head, as though the weight might keep the room from spinning. It didn't. He couldn't explain why his knees felt like buckling or his eyes wanted to slide closed.

Ivy was more than understanding. She saw him to the door, parting the curtain of vines for him and seeing him off with one last ruffle of her hand through his hair. He heard her pleased whisper behind him as he left.

"This may be the beginning of a very rewarding relationship."

* * *

Tim wasn't actually able to follow through with Ivy's suggestion that day. All the way home he felt dizzy and lightheaded, and he probably worried the housekeeper by collapsing into bed in the middle of the day and sleeping through dinner. He didn't remember anyone trying to rouse him, despite later accounts to the contrary—didn't remember large pieces of his encounter with Ivy. Whatever had possessed him, he felt fine when he finally woke up the next morning.

So it wasn't until later that next day, he ran down to the beach to put Ivy's trick to the test, leaving the coin out on one of the rocks, just clear of the waves. Then he clambered up on one of the boulders where he could just make out the gold speck glimmering in the sunlight below, and settled down in a crag to watch…

And watch. And watch. Until at some point in the late afternoon, the sudden cry of a gull startled him from a nap he'd never meant to take. He immediately looked down where he'd left the coin, but of course, it was gone.

Assuming the waves had washed it away or some intrepid bird had claimed it for a prize, he trekked home that night, disappointed and hungry. He didn't think on the missing coin again until the next day, when a seashell suddenly appeared on the same rock when his back was turned. It was impossible to miss—a bright white on black rock. As he got close, he could see that it was a Wentletrap shell, light tan with pure white ribbing. All around, as far as he could see into the crags below, the water was clear and empty, but it didn't stop him from breaking out in a wide grin. He stood up on the rock and waved the shell in the air, knowing that somewhere out there another boy was watching.

Oftentimes thereafter, when the sun was bright and the water clear, Tim would put bright coins out on the rocks. He never saw them disappear, but they were always gone when he turned around. And sometimes, when he was busy looking for crabs, watching them scuttle away when he lifted up stones on the beach, exotic shells in brilliant colors would appear on the rocks where the coins had been. Useless as it was, on those occasions, Tim would splash out as quickly as he could in the hope of catching sight of his invisible friend. He never could make it in time, instead waving thank you to the empty sea.

Ivy was always willing to hear about it though. She was someone who would listen, someone who wouldn't laugh at him or shoo him away for telling stories. She always asked him to come back, and he always did.

He always did.

* * *

**Author Note: **And thus Tim begins his stalking days early. This is my addition to the little pile of mer!Tim fics haunting Tumblr, because it was driving me crazy that none of them were longer than 1000 words, and while I may not be qualified to write good mer-fics, I have yet to find a longer mer-batfamily story (so I achieved my goal). Definitely a change of pace from my last story. Tim is so cute when he's young! And happy. But he won't be staying this young for long.

Ivy is totally off character, isn't she? She hasn't shown up in any of the Robin or Nightwing comics I've read (which is around 98% of them), so I was having trouble gauging her character. Obviously her kisses aren't poisonous here, but they are still bad news. While brainstorming ideas, we were totally stuck on water-based villains. I even thought Penguin at first maybe because the merfolk were messing up the fishing trade or something, but I really didn't want to work with that character. It was my beta's idea to use Ivy as a seaweed witch, and the idea was just particularly attractive (though somehow she still ended up using ivy). The entire time I was writing this, I swear, I was battling Ursula lines: "Oh, there is one more thing. We haven't discussed the subject of payment. You can't get something for nothing, you know."

Huge round of applause for my beta, Schnickledooger, for putting up with me and my terrible writing (and my _complaining_ about it being terrible).

Oh, notes:

1. Gold is the coin's color, not its material, though I'm sure our mer-friends prefer gold, seeing as how it doesn't rust and hardly tarnishes, unlike silver.

2. The Lasky's child is Mike Lasky, also known as Dodge. (Robin 156-ish, or Teenage Wasteland)

3. The shell in Ivy's hair is a Kiener's Delphinula from the Philippines. If you look up pictures, it's quite pretty.

**Next Time:** We're jumping forward in time by several years. Tim finally learns his rescuer's name and meets more of the family... the hard way. But when his involvement with them causes rifts in his own family, which side will he choose?


	2. Marked

**Chapter 2**

Marked

Despite Ivy's assurances, five years later Tim had yet to see any more merfolk, even with visiting the beach every day. Still, if he only saw the one in his entire life, it was more than most people, and it was worth it. Shells still sometimes appeared on the rocks. Sometimes other items would show up—items Tim could usually trace back to their owners with a little effort. Keys, class rings, engraved jewelry. As if his invisible, water-bound friend was politely asking him to take back the junk so carelessly left in his yard. But no matter how frequent these occurrences, his friend stayed just that: invisible. So he was more than a little surprised the day he came down to the beach, backpack slung over his shoulder, intent on finishing homework by the bay, only to find another boy already sitting in the water.

It happened from time to time that somebody didn't see the Private Property signs, or just ignored them, and wandered down along the beach. Tim clutched suddenly at the strap over his shoulder, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. The beach had always been his and his alone, a place even his father wouldn't go and he could wander unmolested along the shore. It was the place where he'd first met his water-bound friend. Seeing it now invaded by a stranger felt like desecration. Still…

Straightening from his troubled slouch, he started towards the stranger, intending to explain the mistake, but as he got closer, it didn't take him long to realize the mistake was his. The older boy—definitely older, pitch-black hair, shirtless—sat knee-deep in the swells, wrapped in fishing net caught on the rocks. Where there should have been legs, there were scales. Bright blue scales.

Tim's trespasser had a _tail_.

A tail that was flicking agitatedly the way a cat's might, while he tried to fray the net with a rock. It was a hopeless endeavor—even the rocks that hadn't been ground smooth were too dull.

His trespasser was stuck.

Grinning wide enough to put the brilliant day to shame, previous gloom forgotten, Tim pulled the scissors out of his backpack and dropped the rest up by the foot of the cliff. He was splashing hurriedly into the water when the older boy finally realized he was there, jerking around in a perfect moment of surprise. It was a testament to his agitation that Tim had managed to get so close at all. That brilliant tail went perfectly still. The rock dropped from motionless hands. Tim found himself staring straight into those uncanny blue eyes, and they weren't smiling like in his memories. They weren't smiling at all.

There was something dangerous about the older boy, something sharp and sleek and predatory. Tim hesitated just the slightest bit, intimated despite himself, suddenly realizing he maybe shouldn't have considered them friends just because the merman had rescued him once. Maybe he'd misunderstood entirely. But the older boy was clearly trapped, and Tim couldn't just leave him like that. He pushed ahead, ignoring the threatening twitch of the other's tail.

There was no place to go, no way out, but the older boy tensed anyway, crouching low, ready to spring, hands clenching down on the net that bound him. It caught on his hair and on the little strand of lapis lazuli wrapped around one wrist. For a second Tim thought the merman might try to attack him through the net and all. He held up his hands, breathless.

"I just want to help. Here, see." He reached forward slowly, snagging a bit of net, and worked at the tight weave with the scissors, succeeding in cutting a couple of the lines after a minute. "Um," he said awkwardly, all too aware of those piercing eyes still trained on him warily. It would probably help if he could stop smiling. It was just that the happiness bubbling up inside wouldn't go away. Every time he glanced at the other boy, his smile widened, spreading contagiously across his face. He bit his lip in an attempt to contain it.

This close, he could see details about the other boy he hadn't before. There were silvery marks gracing either bare shoulder, like someone had poured liquid mercury under his skin and it had spread out along invisible veins. Several locks of ebony hair had been strung with tiny blue beads, probably more lapis lazuli, and bits of white that reminded Tim uncomfortably of bone. But the thing his gaze finally settled on was the tail, where the scales dissolved into a fan of feathery fins: ribbons of turquoise and cerulean and sapphire that floated with the current. They were absolutely beautiful, and absolutely _shredded_. The long ribbons lay in tatters, the brilliant hues patchworked where pieces of cerulean and sapphire were missing.

Tim's smile finally fell away into horrified dismay.

"What happened to your _tail?_" He must have looked pretty distressed, because the older boy finally lost that wary mistrustful expression, trading it in for wry amusement that tugged up a corner of his mouth. Shaking his head, he tugged at the net, as if to say, _Could you hurry up please?_

"We are getting you out of this!" Tim agreed, hacking at the mesh netting with more determination. The older boy helped, holding it up so Tim could get at it, and piece by piece it fell away. He almost had a tear large enough to fit through—his friend's tail back to flicking impatiently—when a cold hand suddenly wrapped around his ankle. It caught him off guard, and he yelped as he went down, dragged completely under the rising waves. They closed over him, cutting him off from the air. The scissors dropped from his hands. There was a flicker of crimson fire, like sunlight on the water, the flick of fins.

Then those same cold hands closed around his throat.

Tim gasped, struggled, thrashing against the grip that was pushing him yet deeper, but his attacker was strong, ignoring the welts Tim clawed into his arms. The rocks pressed into his back then, and he knew he'd hit the bottom. It was like drowning when he was seven all over again. Except this time the surface was so close, a brilliant light flickering just past the edges of his fingertips. For one perfect moment, the sun stopped backlighting the shadowy figure above him, and Tim could see narrowed green eyes framed by a cloud of black hair, wisps of white at one temple. A dagger-shaped ruby dangled from one ear, reflecting bloody light, and a sheathed knife slung across his right hip. Then there was that tail—that crimson-fire tail.

Another merman. There were two of them. Warmth replaced the cold dread in Tim's stomach. It seemed fitting that the second time, there were two.

He stopped struggling then, blinking instead up at the other boy. He reached up, brushing fingertips curiously at the other's frown. Something softened then. The grip at his throat loosened just a fraction. Maybe it didn't mean anything. Maybe he still would've drowned there, pinned down, but his assailant hadn't pulled the knife at his hip, and that had to count for something. Whether the older boy would have let him up then or not though, he never got to find out. At that moment something blue barreled into both of them, tearing those cold hands off him completely. Suddenly freed, he instinctively gasped for air, sucking in burning seawater instead. The world started to go black, disappearing in patches like sunlight on the ocean floor.

Then someone grabbed him, jerked him up, pulling him to the surface, supporting him when he couldn't seem to get his legs under him, and for the second time in his life he was gagging seawater, lungs burning. It was not one of the memories he cared to repeat. But then, the one beside him, supporting him until his legs steadied was his blue-tailed friend, so maybe it was worth it.

As long as he could give up this habit of nearly drowning every time they met.

"Thanks," he said, voice rough, as his friend helped him to a rock. For a minute, the older boy just looked at him with appraising blue eyes, the little swells lapping at his back. Then, reaching out, he caught Tim's arm and pulled him closer, a little deeper into the water. Tim didn't resist the pull. It was easier to let the water keep him afloat than to try and stand on still-shaky legs anyway. And it felt strangely like a secret, what with just a few scant inches of water separating them, something special, a moment he didn't want to break, and he definitely didn't want to do anything that might make the older boy leave. So he watched, holding his breath, as his friend leaned forward, pressing a watery kiss into his right shoulder. At first he thought it was some sort of greeting or sign of acceptance, but the moment those cold lips touched his arm all preconceived notions flew out of his head, because it _burned_. It was fleeting—no more than a whisper against his skin, like the passing of seaweed in the current—but it sent a jolt of cold through his bones, icy fire skittering along his skin. He gasped, head knocking back with the next swell. He probably would have hit his head on the rock, if not for the grip the older boy still had on his arm. It took a second to regain his breath. Once he'd steadied himself, his friend pulled away, and he could see that the kiss had left a mark on his arm, like liquid silver under the skin. The same mark that adorned both the shoulders of the two mermen.

Rubbing at it as if he could massage out the aftershocks of that chilly kiss still echoing in his veins, making him shiver, Tim started to ask what it was, what it meant, but right then the sunlight glittered scarlet in the water and he realized the red one was still there, watching them from several feet away, tail like bright streamers on the current. Scowling unhappily, the merman turned and swam away. The blue one beside him frowned, slipping back beneath the water, and Tim didn't want it to end like that.

"Wait!" he called, splashing gracelessly from his rock. "Will I see you again? What's your name?" The older boy paused, turning back one last time, and quickly took one of Tim's hands. When his fingers started to curl reflexively, the boy flattened them. Then, pressing a fingertip to his palm, mapped letters into the smooth skin.

"Dick."

Then the boy turned and was off after the red-tailed one, leaving Tim blinking and calling after him, "Tim! It's Tim!"

* * *

Tim wasn't exactly expecting to see any mermen the next day or anytime soon—it had taken five years last time to see them again—nevertheless, he was back by the bay just as soon as he could sneak down, out clambering on the rocks. It was one of those quiet days, where the wind was a ghost's breath faint against his skin, and even the waves were too lazy to do more than lap a little at the shore. When he turned just right, something glittered red out of the corner of his eye, and even knowing the chances, he couldn't help but hope it was scales as he whipped back to look.

It wasn't, of course. As he got closer, it became shards of glittering red spilled on the rocks, then a handful of rubies and obsidian shards, until, picking it up, he realized it was a bracelet. He turned it over in his hands, looking for a name, something to identify an owner—usually the items that showed up for him to return had some kind of identifiable engraving—but there wasn't a mark on it. Not even a brand name. He was still sitting there, perplexed, feet dangling in the water up to his calves, when a flash of blue to his right caught his attention. That was all the warning he got before a wave of water crashed over him.

"Dick!" Tim half spluttered, half laughed, fending off the splashes. "Dick, stop it!" When that did nothing to diminish the deluge, he kicked back with his feet, useless as the attempt was. "I'll find the owner, I promise!" The attack did stop then, but only because Dick was blinking blankly at him. Tim held out the bracelet then, wiping water out of his eyes with the other hand while the older boy swam closer for a better look. He wasn't expecting the sudden grin that broke out on Dick's face or the excited gesturing that didn't end until Tim figured it out and offered up his hand, letting the merman drag it down closer.

"Jason," Dick mapped, and it was Tim's turn to look blank until the older boy jangled the lapis lazuli around his own wrist for demonstration and it clicked together.

"That jerk!" Tim raised a hand to his throat as if to ward off an invisible grip. The string of rubies glittered dangerously. "He's not going to try drowning me again, is he?"

Dick was already shaking his head, tracing letters. "Misunderstanding." Then, when Tim still didn't make any move, he rolled his eyes, took the strand of rubies and wrapped it around Tim's wrist.

The red stones were smooth, rounded off, but they looked like teeth nonetheless—blood-red teeth—and the little black ones dug into his skin. He'd always know when he was wearing it—he would not be able to forget it for a second. Dick seemed to think it was Jason's way of apologizing. Tim thought it was a warning.

He was only able to stare dubiously at it for a few seconds though, before Dick began tugging at his arm. "Alright, alright," Tim said, sliding into the water so they were level. It wasn't as cold as usual, but then, the bright sun was warm on his bare shoulders, glittering blindingly off the swells. Then Dick slipped beneath the surface, swimming a few feet out before turning to look back at him expectantly—upside down, the show off. Tim took a deep breath and followed.

Under the water, it was just like that day they'd first met. The same feel of suspended time saturated the world below the waves, cut off from the cry of the gulls and the whistle of the wind. There was only the two of them and an infinite expanse of sea. Sunlight churned the water an aquamarine blue. It was perfectly clear, down until the light snuffed out in the black depths. There, the rocks that peaked out above the surface became a network of caves and crevices and narrow passages. A thousand things to explore.

Dick caught his hand with a reassuring smile before pulling him down deeper into the world below, and Tim felt strangely like a guest in his own backyard. It was the same watery maze he'd always seen when he ducked below the surface, but it was Dick beside him now, showing him, taking him farther out than he'd dared go before, taking him deeper. Sometimes so deep his ears ached and the weight of the water pressed at his lungs. It never seemed deep enough. There was always more to see, just out of reach.

Tim watched the light patterns dance across blue-tinted skin and thought, _This is what Dick sees all the time_. What Jack would never see.

Dick slipped in and out of the crags like a shadow, sometimes pointing to things he wanted Tim to see. Dick could have swum laps around him, but the older boy always stopped to wait, patiently keeping pace with his slower human companion. When Tim had to come up for air, Dick blew bubbles teasingly at him from below—bubbles that floated away like flotsam on the surface. And if he thought Tim was taking longer than necessary, he'd tug at his arm, as if to say, _Are you coming?_

Maybe it was his imagination, but he didn't have to come up for air as often as he used to. When Dick dragged him back down to show him something else, he followed easily. Once he thought about it, it seemed easier to see too. The salt had never deterred him from enjoying the bay, but it had always stung. Now he hardly noticed it.

If the thoughts were worrying at all though, they were quickly forgotten in light of brilliant blue scales, or a sudden touch at his shoulder, catching his attention.

Sometime later—hours, by the slant of the sun—Tim pulled himself up onto a warm rock, just a few inches above the little swells, and collapsed facedown, taking a minute to absorb the warmth into his skin. He considered himself a good swimmer—Jack had made sure he'd had lessons—but it was hard to beat friends with fins. Speaking of which…

"Nuh-uh," he said, sticking stubbornly to the rock when Dick tugged questioningly at his arm. The splashes that followed, lapping at his sides, might have been the older boy's way of laughing at him. Tim didn't turn to see if he was grinning too. Dick could swim all day. "Can't. Too tired." Tim thought Dick might give up on him and go back to his own world—a strangely disappointing idea after everything. So he was a little surprised by the sudden gasp—the switch from filtering oxygen out of the water to breathing air—and the splash of cold water against his side. Turning his head, he could see that Dick had pulled himself up onto the rock beside him, the ragged ends of his brilliant tail dipping gracefully back down beneath the swells beside Tim's feet. Never completely out of the water, but it was the most Tim had seen.

"Thought you'd given up on the pathetic human," Tim said, only to squirm under the cold clamber of wet limbs as Dick draped himself across Tim's back. After the sun's rays warm on his skin, sopping wet hair was cold, cold, cold. There was an elbow against his side, and it should have been unpleasant, but when the older boy began mapping words along his spine, he couldn't contain the breathy little laugh that shook him, half suppressed by the older boy's weight. Dick made an annoyed humming sound and started over, perhaps offended by the squirming of his drawing board.

As if to confirm his exasperation, the first words were, "Hold still."

"Well, it would be a lot easier if you could just talk to me," Tim replied, suppressing the tremors of laughter that Dick's writing threatened to instigate all over again.

"Forbidden."

"By who?" Tim stilled, curiosity winning over, wondering if writing on him was the older boy's way of bending the rule. The thought made him glow: Dick was bending the rules for him.

"Bruce."

"Is he–" But Dick was still writing. Out of the water, the little strand of lapis lazuli he wore jingled pleasantly when he moved, sometimes skittering across Tim's back as the older boy wrote.

"Father."

"Oh. Sounds strict."

"Very."

"At least he's around." Tim rested his head on his crossed arms, dipping his feet in and out of the water. "My parents used to go away all the time."

"Used to?"

"Mom died," Tim clarified. "She drowned. Dad's around more often now, but he hates the water. He'll never come down here. He even draws all the shades on this side of the house so he won't have to look at it. I think he only stays because mom loved it so much."

"Is that why you're always alone?" Dick asked. Tim's feet paused, one in the water, one lifted up.

"It's fine. It doesn't bother me." But Dick didn't let it go.

"Is that why you spent all those years looking for me?"

"You…" Tim paused, remembering the rush of the sea over his head, the terror of not being able to breathe… and the safety of arms wrapping around him, pulling him free. "You saved me. You were there when no one else was. Even afterward, even if I couldn't see you, you were always there, weren't you? Always leaving things for me to find. It meant a lot to me."

There was a moment of silence, and then Dick was hugging him. It was a pretty irregular hug, with Dick's arms only wrapped halfway around his sides because he was being simultaneously flattened to the rock, but it was wonderful all the same.

The stone was warm beneath him and Dick was warm against his back, now that the sun had licked the water away, and it felt wonderful. Even with the older boy's weight making it hard to breathe. Tim's grip tightened on the rough ridges of rock, as if he could hold on to it all a bit longer and somehow keep the moment from slipping away—hold on and hope the days would never end.

* * *

Dick's visits became more frequent after that. It seemed there was always something to explore, always something the older boy wanted to show him. Even when clouds cloistered in the sky and dampened the day with their showers, everything always seemed bright and new and exciting by the bay. There were days they couldn't get together, of course. Sometimes storms whipped the water to froth, and there was no going out then. Sometimes the older boy just didn't show, and Tim wondered at those times, staring out across the water, what he was doing.

Sometimes, more rarely, Jason would come, usually to talk to Dick—conversations under the water Tim couldn't hear—but sometimes he'd stay. Sometimes the two of them would engage in some sort of underwater game of tag, darting in and out and around the rocky labyrinth with bright flashes of blue and red that Tim loved to watch—games that Dick usually seemed to win. Never on any of those occasions did Jason try to talk to Tim, or even acknowledge him. If the bright red stones biting at his wrist were meant as an apology, it didn't show.

The first time anything changed, Tim was clambering hurriedly around one of the rocky fingers that jutted into the bay, foot inches above the waterline, stretching precariously for the next handhold. It was in the middle of that precarious position, awkward and off balance, that cold fingers wrapped around his ankle, tugging hard. The unexpected pull jerked him free of his tenuous hold and he splashed into the surf below with a yelp.

It was probably an accident. If he hadn't been stretched out so precariously in that instant, he might not have fallen. The fire-finned merman had probably just been trying to get his attention. What he got was a face-full of struggling boy instead.

Tim would swear later that it was self-defense. He'd just been dragged into the water, was disoriented, possibly facing an unknown assailant, and _that's_ how he ended up kicking Jason in the head. _And_ elbowing him in the solar plexus when the older boy tried to restrain him. Possibly Jason hadn't expected him to know how to fight, or possibly he just hadn't been expecting to get Tim dropped on top of him.

Of course, under the water, Jason had the upper hand and it didn't take him long to bind the smaller boy's legs with his tail, pull thin arms to the back and catch both wrists with one hand. It didn't take long at all. Tim gasped for air as Jason belatedly remembered to pull him above the surface.

"Would you stop trying to drown me!" Tim panted, shaking sopping wet strands of hair out of his eyes. Jason's expression was one of affront. _You are an idiot_, it said. It was for the best that the merman didn't actually seem bent on killing him, because he certainly looked annoyed enough.

Something small and round was pushed into Tim's hand then. He clenched fingers around it, and just that quickly Jason's hold on him released. By the time he spun around, bobbing in the swells, the merman was already disappearing, fiery tail vanishing into the dark.

There was something unsettling about the way the filament-fine ends of those red fins spread through the water. It reminded him of blood.

He shuddered.

Then, remembering the object still clutched in his fist, he uncurled his fingers curiously. There, in his palm, rested a ring, crusted with class insignia. The engraved name marked it as one of the lost items Dick was always asking him to return. Maybe it had even been Dick who'd asked Jason to make sure it reached him.

Tim jerked his gaze back to the place where the merman had disappeared, but of course, it was too late. Jason was gone, and with him, any chance to make amends. He'd had one chance to fix whatever misunderstanding had started them off on the wrong foot, and he'd lost it.

All the way home, the gulls in the sky seemed to mock him.

Apparently, Jason wasn't about to let him live it down either, because for weeks thereafter, whenever Tim was swimming or sitting with his feet in the water or just generally in reach, usually when he least expected it, cold fingers would catch at his ankles. The second and third encounters went decidedly better than the first, but with no less surprised splashing and yelping. There was never any chance to sort the issue out; his surprise attacker was always gone before he could turn around, disappearing into the depths.

Tim was not amused. Not amused at all. It was as though the original episode had evolved into a game of tormenting the human. Maybe it was revenge for the lovely blue and purple markings Jason sported across his face for the next week. Or maybe it was an attempt to drive away his least favorite human. Either way, one thing was for sure…

"Jason hates me," Tim replied one day when Dick asked him what was wrong—Dick, who knew all about the episode by then.

"Maybe you impressed him," Dick wrote. Tim tried to imagine Jason being impressed by that kick to his head—tried to imagine everything since then as a form of fond teasing. He considered it for all of a second.

"No, Jason hates me." A belief he maintained right up until Dick pushed him off his rock for moping.

The attacks didn't stop, but they did gradually stop bothering him. Once he resigned himself to the inevitable, the molestation became just another part of visiting the beach. Something familiar. Something expected. After a while he hardly reacted to the customary cold fingers at his ankle. It was probably a bad sign, he thought one day, weeks later, while pausing the fraction of a second it took for the hand tugging at his toes to disappear—a bad sign that he was so used to it. But then, maybe his complacency was why Jason didn't always vanish afterward anymore. Oh, he always made sure he was out of reach, but he'd stop there, watching. Until, one day, he didn't leave at all.

Tim was swimming out to one of the deeper rocks, expecting the familiar tug of watery hands, because the opportunity was too good to pass up. He definitely was not expecting the hand that pressed up against his abdomen from below—a new touch, solid, not like the ghosting of fingers he was used to. Every vertebra in his back stiffened at the unfamiliar contact, though it still didn't startle him as badly as it might have a month back. Hanging around merfolk every day was fast running him out of surprise.

Paused there, arms and legs still extended for the next stroke, he waited for the hand to disappear, for the fingers splayed against his abdomen to vanish into the depths as quickly as they had come like some impossible game of tag. Because they always vanished if he waited. When they didn't, Tim relaxed minutely, opening his eyes against the prick of salt, a little surprised to meet the bright green gaze below. Jason, beneath him, mirroring him under the water.

As if that was what the older boy had been waiting for, he bobbed to the surface, never taking his hand away. Tim tried to follow, but increased pressure at his abdomen prevented him, the hand there pressing up more forcefully. At the same time, Jason's other hand pressed down along the rise of his back, splaying over vertebrae. Tim didn't try to fight the foreign touch, allowing the adjustment to the curve of his spine, the lengthening in the reach of his arm, all the while watching the older boy with what was probably the strangest expression. If this was some new form of torment, he didn't get it. Jason didn't seem likely to clue him in any time soon either. The older boy simply continued pressing this way or that until Tim got it right, molding to the hands against his skin.

It wasn't until the end he realized Jason had corrected his stroke.

He'd just had his stroke corrected by a merman.

Tim didn't stop blushing for hours.

* * *

"Ah-hem." Tim stopped guiltily in the middle of the foyer—he hadn't even made it to the stairs—and turned to face Mrs. MacIlvenne's wrath. She stood by the window, one hand on her hip, one holding up a mop, glaring holes in the stream of sandy water Tim had trailed across the floor. It could have been worse—he'd actually remembered to take his shirt off first this time, so it was only his hair and shorts that were dripping. He tried to look appropriately guilty anyway, blinking up at her from under a fall of wet hair.

"Sorry."

"Just… stay right there." With a put-upon sigh, she set down the mop and padded out of the room, only to return a minute later with an armload of towels.

"Thanks," Tim said, accepting the pink, fluffy one she draped over his head with as much humility as possible, immediately using it to blot the moisture out of his hair. It was not a pleasant practice to offend the housekeeper. She had subtle ways of getting revenge. MacIlvenne might have let him go after that—that might have been the end of it—if she hadn't looked up just then and seen the silvery mark on his shoulder, peeking out where his sleeve had ridden up. The ensuing shriek rousted any birds living in the eaves.

"It's the mer-mark!" she said, hands flying to her face, towels forgotten. "The curse!" And he'd always thought she was a practical woman…

"It's no such thing. Mrs. MacIlvenne, calm down." He jerked his sleeve back down where it had ridden up, sandy water forgotten. "It's not what it looks like." It was exactly what it looked like, and there was no trying to convince her it was a tattoo or a scar. The coloration was wrong.

"Oh, no, no, no…" Her hands fluttered anxiously as she backed away.

Maybe everything still would have been alright, maybe he would have been able to placate her, convince her it was something else, if his father hadn't chosen that moment to walk in.

"What is all this fuss about?"

"It's nothing. Just a misunderstanding." Tim tried to head it off.

"He belongs to the merfolk now," MacIlvenne overrode him. "They've claimed him as one of their own." She pointed accusingly at Tim's shoulder, and there was nothing he could do to stop Jack walking over, taking him firmly by the arm, and jerking his sleeve up. If he'd resisted, it would have just been obvious he had something to hide. And there it was, bared before his father's scrutiny. Tim twisted uncomfortably, feeling more exposed than ever under that hard gaze.

"What is this?" Jack's fingers dug painfully into his shoulder, prying at the silver as if trying to rub it off.

"It's the mark of the merfolk." MacIlvenne still wasn't coming any closer, maintaining a good three-foot distance as if it might be contagious.

Jack was not a particularly superstitious man, but it was impossible not to feel something of the sea's strangeness living so close to it—a strangeness that seeped into the bones—impossible not to believe there was something out there living in a town with a history of children dying or disappearing. And when confronted with such blatant evidence—the mark he couldn't deny branding his own son's shoulder—there wasn't much room for doubt.

Jack pulled Tim into a fierce hug, wet clothes and all.

"I'm not losing you. We'll fix this. I won't let them take you from me." One hand was in Tim's damp hair, pressing his head to his father's chest. "We'll find whatever did this to you and stop it." At that, Tim's fingers clenched suddenly in Jack's shirt, and he pushed away, struggling free of his father's grip.

"No! It's not like that! They wouldn't harm anyone!"

Mrs. MacIlvenne gasped, and Tim knew immediately he hadn't helped the case.

"You've seen them?" Jack asked, eyes narrowing. The suspicion solidified when he took Tim's face in his hands, shaking his son as if he could shake answers out of him, and found only apprehension. "You've _been_ with them?" It was amazing how quickly the fear turned to betrayal. "_Why_, Timothy?"

"He's been bewitched."

"They saved me!"

"So they can take you away from your family?"

"Dad—"

"No. You aren't going near that bay again." The stern, carved angle of Jack's mouth was final, his eyes as forgiving as steel. No one was going to mess with his family. "Not until we clear these creatures out. Not until we end this curse once and for all."

"It's for the best," Mrs. MacIlvenne agreed. "Surely, when they're gone, he'll be free of their enchantment."

Something in Tim's gut clenched tight at their words—the two of them, standing there, unified against him. The mark on his shoulder seemed bitter cold again—a chill seeping into his skin. It felt like a brand. He backed away, one foot after another, slowly shaking his head. It didn't matter that he was still wet, half dressed. They couldn't do this. They couldn't.

"Tim." It was a plea: _Don't be like this_. It was disappointment: _I thought better of you_.

Tim turned and ran, not stopping until he was in his bedroom and the door was a solid wall against his back. He didn't know what to do, didn't know how he could stop it, but he knew one thing with absolute surety:

He had to warn Dick.

* * *

**Author Note: **So remember, if you ever find silvery mer-marks on your shoulder, you should definitely tell your parents.

And so we start into a lovely set of cliffhangers. This is probably the longest of all the chapters, so enjoy it while you can (there just wasn't a good breaking point). I don't know why, but Dick-Tim moments are way more forthcoming than Jay-Tim. I really enjoyed writing Jason in my last fic, but without his mouth, I feel like I'm struggling with him here. Maybe it's that and the lack of his POV. I don't know much about Mrs. MacIlvenne either; please feel free to inform me how I messed up her character.

It was mentioned that yes, Ivy kissed a 7-year-old last chapter. Is it bad that I don't even notice things like this anymore? In my defense though, I felt it fairly obvious that she didn't kiss him to kiss him. She got what she wanted, which is what matters. Kissing is a means to an end in this story, and not a single one of the kisses is ever just a kiss.

Thank you to the reviewers. I'm not always the best at replying, but I do faithfully adore each and every one.

Notes: The boys' fins are based off beta fish, because I've always thought they were stunning (when they aren't trying to kill each other), but I swear they tear their fins so easily. Also, I am currently in the midst of vehemently denying any and all mermaid logic flaws. If it doesn't make sense, we're blaming it on mermaid magic.

Oh, the next chapter must be one of my favorites. It's filled with so much lovely traitorousness.

**Next Time:** Tim's determined to get some answers about the marks, but he's not going to like what he finds. Can he accept that Jack might have been right about his friends? And they're not the only ones with things to hide. Ivy has her own plans for our dear merfamily and their human acquaintance. Amidst all the suspicion though, Tim, himself, may be the least trustworthy of all...


	3. Betrayer

**Chapter 3**

Betrayer

Tim probably could have made it down to the bay that night despite his father's watchful eye, but he'd always before met Dick during the day and there was no guarantee he'd be there now. That was fine, because the longer he sat there, fingernails biting into his knees worriedly, the more he realized he needed to do. The more he realized he needed to _know_ what was really going on.

Uncurling from his ball on the floor, he pushed open his laptop, waiting patiently for the browser to pop up.

Then he started searching for the missing children.

It didn't take long to bring up lists of names and dates and pictures. Decades worth. He scrolled through, scanning for mentions of the marks in the images or descriptions. If there was a connection, he had to know. But image after image scrolled past without a trace of the silver stain he'd come to associate with the merfolk. Frequently the children wore long-sleeved shirts in their photos, but just as many were bare-shouldered in summer clothes. None of them had marks. He was halfway down the list, fingers just starting to relax their anxious grip on the mouse, when suddenly a face scrolled into view he recognized. It stared out at him, grinning familiarly from the screen.

Tim shoved back from the computer so forcefully he nearly toppled over his chair.

Standing there in the middle of his room, heart racing, bathed in the eerie glow of the monitor, he knew he'd found the connection. It was right there on his screen. Only it wasn't what he'd expected. After meeting them, Tim had been sure the merfolk were not to blame for the missing children. The townspeople had to be wrong. But with _that_ face on the list…

How could it not be true?

He collapsed abruptly onto the edge of his bed, knees folding. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't.

There was someone who might know though. The thought solidified quickly once it was born. Someone who knew more about the merfolk than he did. Someone who might be able to clear up this misunderstanding. And he wouldn't even be disobeying his father to see her.

Tomorrow. He'd visit her tomorrow.

Right after he made a stop at the tool shed, where they stored all the gardening supplies.

* * *

The cabin was just as Tim remembered it, tucked back away in a copse of trees near the bay. The vines falling heavily across the door swayed as he pushed through them, brushing at his shirt with a dry rattle of leaves. Unlike the first time, they let him through freely. They knew Ivy wanted him now.

It didn't feel the same somehow though. Always, when he was younger, there had been this sense of anticipation when he stepped into her home, of excitement, like the air was different there. Sometimes it had been hard to fight the desire to stay. Now he felt the faintest inkling of foreboding, and why hadn't he noticed that before?

"Well, if it isn't the little mermaid fan." Ivy's voice floated up pleasantly from the plant she was tending. "It's been awhile. Come back for more stories?" She smiled. "Or maybe you have a story for me?"

"Ivy, tell me about the marks. I know you know about them. What do they do?" It was the one piece that didn't fit. With the exception of that one familiar face, none of the reports on missing children had mentioned silvery marks on their shoulders.

"Marks?" She looked up. "Why the sudden interest?"

"Just something my father said…" But she was eyeing him peculiarly, like a riddle she couldn't quite solve, taking in the strand of rubies prickling his wrist. He rolled it awkwardly between his fingers under the scrutiny.

"You've changed. There's something different about you." She reached out suddenly and jerked up the sleeve of his shirt, bearing his shoulder, eyes riveting to the same silvery mark that had made his father recoil. Tim expected to see loathing fill those emerald eyes, disgust at the child touched by the merfolk, perhaps even pity. That was it. She wouldn't want anything to do with him now.

He wasn't expecting her to lean closer, face lit with sudden desire.

"Oh, my dear. I don't think you've been entirely honest with me." One sharp fingernail traced the mark, mapping out the little silver tendrils that vanished into his veins. She pushed his other sleeve up then, pursing her lips when that shoulder proved bare. "Only half? I expected better of you."

"Father said it was a curse."

"Curse! Ha! That's talk of ignorant townsfolk. This…" she tapped it, "is a mark of approval. It means your little friend thinks of you as one of them. And it's a gift. You can hold your breath longer now, am I right? You can see as well below the water as above it. When it gets cold, the temperature doesn't bother you. You should be pleased they bestowed something so precious on an unworthy human child."

It struck Tim just then to wonder how Ivy knew so much: Ivy, whose bare shoulders sported no silver marks, but who knew so much about them. Ivy, who wouldn't go near the water but was full of endless knowledge about the merfamily in the bay. All those years he'd come to ask her about the merfolk, maybe he should have asked her about herself.

"Ivy…" He opened his mouth, started to voice the strange suspicions that were swirling across his mind, but she leaned forward then and kissed him. It was only a quick press of lips to his cheek, like his mother had once kissed him goodnight, but her scent lingered afterward, rich and heady like growing things. In the wake of her withdrawal, everything else seemed distant, unimportant. He blinked, trying to clear his thoughts, and blinked again.

"But this means you've seen your friend again. Come, I want to hear all about it." The hand she had shackled around his upper arm slid to his fingers, never quite completely releasing him as she guided him to a chair, pulling him down onto her knee when he stopped short.

There were things about his friends he didn't want to share, but under Ivy's careful coaxing and that expectant green gaze, he told her about finding Dick trapped in the net, and Jason, and the strand of rubies on the rocks. She murmured something appreciative then, fingering the blood-red stones. When he came to the spots he was reluctant to reveal, her fingers worked at his hand, pressing circles into his palm until he forgot why it mattered to keep secrets and he stumbled on. She would always smile then, pleased, and it seemed important to please her.

He told her everything.

Finally, _finally_, sometime later, there were no more words to tell, no more secrets to give away, and he petered into silence.

"They must care about you. Wonderful." Ivy leaned closer, fervent, as if sharing a secret. "I want you to kill them for me." Tim recoiled, a chill running down his spine, and it was only the quick catch of her hands pulling him back flush against her that kept him on her lap. He froze, paralyzed in her grip.

"Shh. Everything's alright. Everything is… perfect." He flinched when she reached up to run calming fingers through his hair, as though he were a frightened child. "I thought you might be more resistant, now that you've been marked once." Suddenly, her fingers fisted in black locks, jerking his head back. He tried to turn away, to resist even that little bit, because he couldn't let her kiss him again. He couldn't. But her lips pressed to his jaw line and he went limp in her hold, head reeling. He couldn't remember why he was fighting anymore, couldn't see the point.

"I thought…" The words came out thick on his tongue, fought through the pleasurable haze that seemed to fog his mind. What had they been talking about? "I thought you liked mermaids."

"Oh, I do. But I don't want to save them. I want to go back to _being _one of them! Not stuck here aging indefinitely in human form. But that old geezer and his little adopted brats won't let me back in the bay." The vines crawling the walls hissed all at once, picking up on the agitation in her tone. A few moments passed before they settled again. When Ivy continued, it was back to a pleasant hum.

"And then there's you—practically one of them already."

"I'm not–"

"Oh, it's only a matter of time." She laughed delightedly, arms curling around Tim from behind, binding him as surely as her voice. Her scent washed over him. He couldn't breathe without taking her in. He could feel the whisper of her lips at his ear, her words in his head. "You can feel it, inside you. You're more like them already. You're different."

"It's not true! They wouldn't! Not without asking me." But the red rubies rankled on his wrist, and he could already feel the doubt creeping in. What she said made sense. He couldn't deny that Ivy had been right about the changes: he _had _noticed that he could hold his breath longer, that the temperature no longer chilled him to the bone. He was different. Part of him glowed at the thought that Dick approved of him. Part of him felt angry and betrayed that his friend would physically change him without asking permission. How much of his humanity had he already lost?

"They wouldn't," he repeated, a ward against Ivy's poisonous words.

"What? Didn't your little mer-friends tell you?" She knew. She already knew she was right. That was the worst part. "Oh, that's right, they don't talk to humans." Her hands tightened painfully around him then, nails digging into the skin of his stomach, lips burning his ear. "_Kill them_."

Twisting free of Ivy's hold, Tim ran, dodging the vines that reached out for him, brushing at his face and clothes. Behind him, Ivy threw her head back and laughed—the laugh of a mermaid out of water—and it sounded wrong in so many ways. How had he not noticed that before? He really was different. The sound followed fast on his footsteps, echoing warningly in his ears all the way back. Even then, he couldn't rid himself of the worrisomely sick feeling in his stomach that he hadn't escaped at all.

She'd only let him go.

* * *

He couldn't go home, not back to the house and the worried look his father wore when around him now. He couldn't face that, not knowing his father might be right. He was too agitated to go back anyway. So he headed instead for the one place that had always calmed him when conflicted: the bay. Jack had banned him from going near the water, but Tim had never promised. He would have been lying if he had.

If there was any other reason he went, he couldn't recall.

As he followed the path down to the beach, he couldn't seem to lose Ivy's scent. It clung to him, like Janet's perfume had when he was little, a step behind, always waiting to catch up when he stopped. Even when he reached one of the little niches where the beach sprawled hidden from the house and grounds above and the sharp ocean air rolled over him, washing away everything else, he could still feel it. There wasn't any time to worry about it though, because no sooner had he curled up among the boulders than there was a splash and glitter of scales from the water. When Tim looked up, it was Jason sitting on one of the half-submerged rocks, arms crossed, tail flicking impatiently, as if to say, _Well, get over here_.

Any other time, he would have been thrilled Jason was talking to him. Right just then the sight of the older boy only filled him with righteous indignation. He stood and tromped thigh deep out into the water where Jason was perched.

He couldn't explain why there was a very tiny part of him, largely overwritten by the anger, that was begging Jason to run.

"Is it true?" he demanded. "Are the marks changing me?" Jason scowled, but didn't respond, so Tim rushed on, ignoring the older boy's darkening expression. He couldn't stop. Not now. Not with Ivy's words eating at him. Not with the memory of that face on his computer screen. The same one in front of him now. "Is that what happened to the rest of the missing children? Did you change them too? Was I supposed to be next? Tell me, is it true, Jason _Todd_?" Jason looked furious, and for a minute Tim thought he'd finally provoked the older boy into speaking, finally pushed too far. He had a second to think he really shouldn't have been provoking the one who carried a knife on his hip and had a record of trying to drown him, because he was going to pay for it. It wouldn't take more than a second for the merman to drag him under the water and that would be the end, and it was stupid, stupid, _stupid_ to confront him like this. But the recklessness of betrayal had left no place for caution. Maybe too, even under all the doubts, he still wanted to trust his friends.

Jason's mouth opened around angry words, hands clenched on the rock beneath him, and this was it… but Tim never got to find out what he was going to say. At that moment, Dick surfaced beside them and Jason's mouth snapped closed. Tim stifled the disappointment as he faced the new arrival.

"Is it true? About the marks?" He didn't bother explaining. He knew Dick had heard. Frowning, the older boy took Tim's hand, painstakingly writing out his answer.

"Takes more than one."

"How many?" He closed his eyes briefly, shutters against an answer he wasn't ready for. Just how much of his humanity had he lost?

"Three."

"Why didn't you tell me?" The words ground out. There was nothing he could do to make them less accusing. He didn't try. "Were you going to change me without my consent?"

Tim waited patiently for Dick to map the words into his palm. It was incredibly difficult to have a proper argument with a merman.

"We would've asked."

"And the others? What happened to the missing children?"

"She kills them."

"Who?"

Dick looked down, perhaps frustrated by the inability to communicate rapidly, or perhaps affronted by Tim's insinuations. Whatever the case, at that instant, he was off guard. And at that moment time _skipped_. One second Tim was holding his hand out, in the middle of a conversation. He blinked. That was all. It was nothing more than a flicker, like the darkness between slides in a film. The next second he was staring into Dick's wide eyes, hand wrapped around the handle of the knife embedded in the older boy's stomach.

He couldn't explain how the knife got in his hand—he didn't remember picking it up at Ivy's, or sliding it into a pocket, or carrying it all that way.

"Traitor!" The outburst was Jason's. Even in the midst of his shock, it startled Tim, because the other boy hadn't written that. He'd snarled it aloud. It took a minute for the meaning to sink in, and then Tim felt like he'd been slapped. And suddenly it was real—the knife, the blood.

Jason lunged at him and everything flickered again. Longer than before. The darkness burned. This time he came back to himself under the water, the older boy's hand fisted in his shirt, dragging him up, sputtering and choking. It was like coming up out of a dream. The murkiness clouding his mind vanished in little runnels with the saltwater, dripped from hair and fingertips back into the sea. For the first time since he'd left Ivy's, he couldn't catch a trace of her scent. It was gone, washed away in the sea, and everything seemed clearer, unbearably sharp. He could see what he'd done during those black spots in his memory. He could see it all, and he remembered Ivy's words, her insidious whisper asking him to kill them. _Kill them_.

Tim wrapped his hands around his waist, fingernails raking ribs, shaking his head as he backed away. He was shaking. The knife had disappeared, but there was a red slash across Jason's side to make up for it. Incriminating proof.

"I didn't mean… I don't know…" He couldn't explain it. He couldn't make sense of what had happened. He could only stare wide-eyed at the hand Dick had pressed to his abdomen, the way the blood filmed the water, and wait for the condemnation that was coming.

"You've been with Ivy!" It came from Jason. Of course it did. Jason, who'd been right not to trust him.

"I'm sorry." After everything, the words seemed shallow, but it was the only thing left to say. Tim tripped suddenly, over a rock his heel hit, and he toppled backwards into the saltwater. Sprawled there in the shallows, the water lapping at his raised knees and elbows, he couldn't meet the older boy's eyes. He couldn't get any lower.

"Just stay away from us!" Jason turned to help Dick, who was leaning heavily against the rock, one hand caught in the crags for purchase. Tim watched them, shivering in the surf, because he was sure it was the last time he'd ever see them. So he was in the perfect position to watch Jason's head snap back around, eyes narrowing to slits at something behind him, back on the beach. Dick was a split second behind, freezing in place. Tim started to turn, but before he could see, something snaked around him, cord thin. It dragged him backward out of the water. Then there were a dozen more of them, coiling fast around his arms and legs. One wrapped so tightly around his wrist, it snapped the strand of rubies, scattering blood-red stones across the rocks, some bouncing into the wash with wet plops.

He didn't need the lacquered, green fingernails trailing tauntingly through his hair to know who was behind him.

"How do you like my little pet? Adorable, isn't he?" Ivy stood no more than a foot behind the water line, just out of reach of the surf, like it was some kind of line. "He came to me when you wouldn't talk to him, desperate to hear more about the pretty mermaids. I was all too willing to oblige." Tim wanted nothing more than to escape the fond touch of those fingers sliding against his skin—like a good dog, one who'd just performed a trick—a touch that had once felt friendly, but now burned. He wanted to escape it, but the vines held him fast, and he could do nothing when a tight grip at his chin forced his face up for inspection. Nothing but endure it. "After all, how could I resist when he came to me so adorably trusting?" Tim tried to meet her gaze defiantly, but he was uncomfortably aware of the two mermen still watching. Under the heavy weight of his friends' stares, there was only sharp shame. "He's been such a good pet. So obedient. Always returning when requested." She turned then, finally, to pin green eyes on the two mermen, hand dropping away from Tim's head. "I know you can't talk to humans, but you tell your master this: if he wants the boy back, he'll have to let me back. If I don't hear from him, I'll be forced to give my pet a little kiss he won't live long enough to remember."

Jason looked more furious than Tim had ever seen. For a moment, he thought the older boy might try to come after her, out of the water and all. Ivy noticed too.

"I see you remember your own experience with my kiss. Love the hair."

Jason jerked forward then, one hand flying toward the hilt of the knife he always carried at his hip, and it was only Dick's restraining grip that kept the other boy in place. That, and Ivy's smug call.

"Uh, uh, uh. Not unless you want the little kiddy hurt." The vines constricted warningly, and Tim gritted his teeth. There was still the little pill bottle he'd filled from the tool shed in his pocket, unused from earlier, but he couldn't reach it. His fingers twitched, pinned in manacles of foliage. "Besides, your friend's injured. You should get that looked at. I'll give you twenty-four hours. Give me what I want and the boy goes free. Think about it." The vines crawled then, a dozen living ropes wrapping him up more completely, circling around his neck and up over his mouth and nose. Tim looked hopelessly out towards his friends one last time as the daylight disappeared in thick strips, only to meet their unwavering stares—Dick hurt, Jason angry. They didn't move.

They wouldn't come for him—Tim could've told Ivy that. It was useless. He'd tried to kill them. As far as they were concerned, he might as well not exist anymore. That was the thought that filled him as the constriction across his chest grew bone-breakingly tight and the darkness covered him completely.

They wouldn't come.

* * *

**Author Note: **Tim is going to be traumatized about kissing for LIFE after this. Especially after next chapter. For all the lovely people who asked about updating, I'm _attempting_ to update every two weeks. Since I'm about 500 words from finishing, I might actually be able to hold to that (except when we hit Thanksgiving). I almost held onto this chapter in favor of getting something else I've been writing up for Halloween (Vamp AU fic, it'd be all perfect), but ultimately I doubt it will be ready. Even if I have more than enough for a first chapter, I hate posting things before I know where they're going, because then I run the risk of needing to change something later. Maybe I'll risk it. We'll see...

Don't blame Tim for not trying harder to get away from Ivy. Unlike in canon, he doesn't know she's bad news (until now at least), and even with Dick's mark helping him fight her influence, it's not quite enough to overcome her kiss. Though I do feel bad that Tim has so little control over his fate in this fic. He's more or less getting dragged along for the ride instead of being able to take charge.

A not very obvious fact: Only humans who have been changed have silver marks. Naturally born mermaids don't.

I leave you with these words of warning:  
"They grow much faster than bamboo.  
Take care or they'll come after you."  
_-Jumanji_

**Next Time:** Tim is going to get a first-hand look at what happened to the other missing children. But is he destined to become one of them?


	4. Witch

**Chapter 4**

Witch

Tim woke up to familiar dry slithering he didn't want to identify—a sound that had followed him up from some restless dream. A sound that, if only for just a little longer, he wanted to forget. He didn't know how long he'd been out, but long enough that his clothes had dried. His chest ached. If he looked, he was sure there would be bruises outlining his ribs in thick lines—bruises that dreams couldn't leave. When he inhaled, chest expanding, he could still feel an echo rubbing along those bruised tracks. Not the hazy remnants of a dream lingering past its expiration, but the more substantial caress of reality. It was still there.

Opening his eyes then was like plunging back into the nightmare. He wasn't lying safe on his own bed under a familiar ceiling; he was lying in a bed of green foliage, coiled over and around him, wrapped up through the rafters. It wasn't constrictively tight, enfolding him more like a thick blanket, but the vines wove in and out between his arms and torso in such a way that he was still as good as trapped. He could feel them, shifting intermittently around his legs, catching in his hair.

A thousand living ropes.

There were little ones, finer than a pencil, pushed up under his sleeves, hugging the contours of his shoulder blades, and running up under his shorts to curl against his inner thighs. Tim stiffened at the invasion, and immediately wished he hadn't, because they all shifted to adjust, curling contentedly into their new positions. He could feel them stretch like fingers through his hair and under his jaw, sprawled along his ribs and spine, before settling again. It tickled worse than Dick writing across his back, but he hurriedly suppressed the tremors lest he start it up all over again.

Ivy noticed the movement.

"You should've stayed asleep. You might have enjoyed your stay more."

Tim doubted he would ever enjoy his stay again, unconscious or not. He released a slow breath as he forced himself to relax into the tangle that held him, forced himself to accept the ropy embrace for the time being.

"What did you do to Jason?" Slowly, he turned his hand over, running fingers along one of the vines there, exploring its length, the tightness of its weave against the others. It shivered a little, and he wondered if he could coax it apart just enough to let his hand through, closer to his pocket and the little pill bottle he could still feel pressed against his thigh.

"I just gave him a little kiss." She pouted. "Like the other children. There's a reason, you know, your friends avoid the land. Becoming human means aging like one." Her fingers sprawled against the glass aquarium she was working on, face lifted in longing. "It's been so long… so many years…"

"I wouldn't have pegged you a day over twenty." His fingertips scraped the fabric of his shorts, hampered by the little fingerling vines that had curled curiously round and round his knuckles.

"Yes, well, there's always someone willing to help a lady—some cute child wandering in unwittingly, some adorable boy wanting to know more about merfolk." She stood up then, turning to him fully. "Maybe they'll come for you and we'll all get what we want, or maybe they won't…" her smile said this was equally appealing, "and you'll bloom for me most spectacularly. It's really a shame you didn't get that second mark. Still, I bet you'd taste like the sea." Her fingers were on his lips, pressing hungrily, and she leaned closer, down over him, green gaze rapt to his mouth, to the trace of her fingers there. Tim swallowed, heart picking up a beat. Was she going to kiss him? Now? He was still caught, bound inescapably in vines, still unable to reach the bottle in his pocket, tauntingly out of reach.

The thrum of his heart, high and fast, was time running out. He had to distract her, remind her of what she really wanted.

"You shouldn't…" He licked his lips, no more than a dart of his tongue, but it caught the tips of her fingers, made her hum appreciatively.

"Hm?" She was so close now, a hair's breadth away. A whisper.

"Shouldn't you wait? To see if anyone comes?"

She laughed breathily—he could feel it, the little huffs of air.

"Aren't you the clever one. Don't worry, I doubt they'll decide they don't want you just because you lose a few weeks."

She moved her hand to cup his chin, brushing the fingerlings that had curled contentedly under his jaw. Their lips brushed.

Tim flinched, breath hitching, and then…

"Get away from him, _witch_." The words were a low growl from the door. Tim couldn't see. His heart was still hammering. Above him, Ivy paused, murmuring a sigh that feathered across his face.

"Mm, what rude visitors." She stood up, pulling away, and at last Tim could see.

"Give me back my son!" Jack stood in the doorway, feet apart, blunt-nosed revolver leveled at Ivy.

It was the boy beside him Tim hadn't expected: tall, well-built, and naked except for Jack's coat wrapped around his waist. There was a very familiar knife gripped firmly in one hand. If that hadn't been enough, Tim would have recognized that shock of white amid pitch-black hair anywhere.

Jason.

Jason had come for him. As a human. On legs. With Jack.

Tim wasn't sure which part of that he found hardest to believe: the fact that his water-dwelling friend could apparently walk around on land like anyone else whenever he wanted, the fact he'd bothered coming to save the one who'd tried to kill him, or the fact he was with Jack, who had previously been intent on ridding the bay of his kind. But then, looking at Ivy, maybe it was just that they finally had a common enemy, and Tim had to admit he'd never seen Dick or Jason completely out of the water.

If he had any doubts that he wasn't starting to hallucinate, Ivy dispelled them.

"Mr. Drake. I wondered how long you could remain so blissfully ignorant. And you brought a water rat." She glanced at Jason. "Breaking rules, are we?"

"Ivy…" Jack warned. She sighed, reaching out to stroke the vines holding Tim down.

"Tim's currently playing hostage for me, I simply couldn't bear to see him go."

"He's coming home with me."

"Don't pretend you care about him. You didn't even know he's been coming to see me for years. I thought you called yourself his father."

Jack looked briefly furious and then pained. His mouth worked, unable to deny Ivy's barb.

"Don't listen to her!" Tim called, and Jack's haunted blue eyes met his across the room.

"Tim, are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Watch out for–" But at that point one of the vines binding him wrapped around his mouth, effectively gagging him.

Jack wasn't stupid, but he didn't know Ivy's tricks, didn't completely understand what he was dealing with. One of the vines swung down and snapped around the end of the gun. Jack jerked back, startled, and the gun fired up into the ceiling. As if that was some sort of signal, the walls and rafters came alive with the slither and dry rattle of vines, all twisting their way toward the pair standing in the doorway. Even the ones wrapped around Tim rattled and shook, and he squirmed as the little ones—the ones coiled against his inner thighs and snug against the contours of his abdomen—wriggled agitatedly.

"Now look, you've gone and upset my babies." Ivy reached out to pet a few of the smaller tendrils hovering near her as if for reassurance. "You really shouldn't have come here, Mr. Drake."

Jason sliced cleanly through the first several vines that came at him, wielding the knife with a deftness Tim wouldn't have expected of someone who spent all his time underwater. The still-twitching tendrils fell to the floor forgotten. Jack, on the other hand, had come expecting to deal with a human, witch aside, not with a nest of overgrown foliage. With the gun wrested away from him, the vines quickly snapped at his arms, doubling and redoubling their grip, tangling him up quickly. More wrapped around his throat, pulling him up on his toes in a chokehold.

Tim tried to shout, to cry out to the man he might never get to apologize to, but his words were lost in the flora pulled tight across his mouth, cutting sharply into the corners. Biting down only coated his tongue with plant sap and caused the vine to pull tighter.

Jason spared a second to cut through the ones that were trying to choke Jack, and Tim breathed a sigh of relief when his father gasped in air, still stuck, but alive. Wonderfully alive.

Ivy snarled and a few of the thicker vines, the ones wrapped around Tim, unwound to go after the threat. It wasn't enough to free him by far, but it left little gaps in his bindings, just enough to fit his hand through. There was his pocket—he could feel the way his nails snagged on the fold of fabric. He pushed under it, reaching.

In the doorway, Jason stomped on a fingerling snaking across the floor, trying to trip him up. He wasn't losing ground, but he wasn't gaining any either, and Ivy's vines seemed endless.

"Why don't you stop hacking up my babies and give up on your futile rescue attempt?" Ivy asked.

"Fork over the kid and we'll call it even," Jason replied, even as he hacked through a few more.

Tim's fingers finally hit the familiar plastic cap of the bottle, and he quickly hooked two fingers under it, working it up into his hand. Then it was just a matter of pinching the cap open one-handed.

Ivy's attention was still on the door, on the boy slashing away at her precious plants. She didn't see him carefully wiggling his arm free of the loosening vines, nor lifting the bottle above his head—the pill bottle he'd filled with weed killer from the tool shed where they stored the gardening supplies.

He meant to pour it on the vines, to rid himself of the rest of his bindings, but just as it started to tip, one of them knocked it out of his hand. It tumbled through the air, spilling its contents in a wide arc. Watching it spill, the inevitable tilt of the future flickered before Tim's eyes: Jason, knife stripped from his grasp, pulled to his knees by the vines binding his arms, and Jack, broken on the floor, and his own impending demise. He saw it all.

Then the poison hit Ivy.

There was a moment of perfect surprise, her eyes flung wide.

Then she started shrieking.

Tim had never heard such a piercing shriek. She jerked backward, stumbling into one of the tables. Water sloshed from several of the aquariums. Her hands flew to cover her face, hair falling in a thick curtain. Even the vines drew back toward her protectively.

Around the room, everything stood frozen—Jason, panting by the door, knife still raised, and Jack, tied up but watching. Tim, too, could only stare, frozen in place by those inhuman shrieks. Then slowly, shaking hands drew away from her face and clenched tight. She jerked toward him, snarling through a fall of red locks, and finally he could see her face, the way the skin had blackened into a ruined mask.

"You!" At the venomous snarl, time lurched forward again and Tim started struggling, twisting and heaving at his bindings, filled with a blinding sense of his own imminent demise as she stalked forward. But under her withering glare, the vines constricted crushingly tight, drawing lines of blood where they cut into his skin. For a minute he thought they would keep tightening until he broke, snapped like matchsticks under the pressure, but Ivy snatched him close by the front of his shirt, ruined mouth mashing roughly against his. It was deafening, the rush in his ears louder than the wind howling down the points during a storm. Any shout of surprise was drowned by the maelstrom, swallowed by the woman devouring him from the inside out.

Tim was close enough that he could see every inch of blackened skin marring that eternally young face, and it might have been an hallucination—his head was reeling—but there was less of it than before. She kissed him, drawing him in, and the withered black patch melted away. Little bits of ruined skin flaked off and smoothed across flawless cheekbones, the bridge of a nose.

Jack had called her old, but Tim had only ever seen her young and beautiful. He thought now he understood why. All those children who'd disappeared over the years, the ones the townsfolk said had been called into the sea; he was beginning to understand what had really happened to them. They'd been used, like this, by this woman.

Once before he recalled a similar kiss, one that had left him dizzy and drunk, unconscious for hours, but it had lasted no more than a handful of seconds. This was different. She wasn't going to stop this time. He wasn't going to fall asleep for hours and wake up the next day.

He wasn't going to wake up at all.

And all the while his blood ran down living, green ropes and dripped from little ivy leaves.

His limbs felt heavy, lined with lead, everything dragging him down, but even that was distant, nothing more than the pitiful concerns of a physical body. Everything there was, everything that mattered, was consumed with that kiss, licking at the inside of his skull, bleeding him dry. If there was anything outside of that—people shouting, confusion—it was lost in the ringing in his ears, in the fog clouding his vision. There were little black holes in the world, bits of cold flame eating away at the edges.

Then, distantly, he felt Ivy's grip on him jerk. She gasped and staggered back, breaking the kiss. There was something metallic-sharp protruding from her chest, and dazed as he was, it took Tim a second to recognize the tip of Jason's knife. Even as he watched, it disappeared, jerked free of its cage of tissue and bone, only to reappear, stabbing up through her back. Ivy's eyes were wide with surprise, mouth wrapped around an endless "oh" as she staggered again. There were only a few spots of black left on her face, like smudged mascara. Her fingers were still clasped in his shirt, but Jason's rough hands were there suddenly, pulling him free, jerking the twitching vines away. Without that support, he collapsed—a marionette without strings. Jason must have caught him, because the expected slap of the wood floor never came.

There was a dull thud anyway, and it took him a moment to realize it was Ivy falling into the still-twitching remains of the vines dying on the ground.

"Don't you dare die on me." The words didn't mean anything, but the fog cleared for a moment, enough to make out the face above him. He was lying rag-doll limp in Jason's arms, pressed protectively against the older boy's chest.

Jason started to lift him up, and then Jack was there, blocking the light, all worry and concern.

"Tim, son, talk to me." Large hands wrapped through his fingers, squeezing more desperately when he only stared dimly up at them. "Tim…"

"I'm taking him to Bruce."

"No! You're not taking my son from me. Not again."

"He needs to come with me."

"He needs to go to a hospital!" Practical Jack, trying to take back control over the situation—the control he'd been slowly losing for years without realizing. Now, on the verge of losing everything, maybe he just needed to believe there was still something he could do to fix things.

"Your hospitals don't know jack about this."

"What would a merman know about–"

"From what I hear," Jason pressed, angry, "you've already done a bang-up job letting your fear and regret drive your son away. Are you really going to let it kill him too?" It was the sort of reproach that normally would have had Jack up in arms, but these weren't normal circumstances, and there was more than his pride at stake. The tension stretched thin, eking away until all that remained was the desperation.

"She… All she did was kiss him."

"And it nearly killed him." Jason was pitiless. "What's it going to be?"

"Take…" Jack's voice hitched and he swallowed brokenly. "Take care of him. Keep my son alive." There was another thud—this time it was the thud of knees hitting the floor. It was a hollow sound, defeated, the sound of a man losing everything he had.

Jason didn't even look back.

Ivy's cabin loomed behind them, falling away through the trees. The salty night air hit Tim, the same breeze that carried the memory of the sea through his open window every night, lulling him to sleep. The fog came back then, thick and heavy across his vision, and he let himself drift.

He must have drifted further than he thought, because he came back to rude shaking and an obnoxiously loud voice in his ear.

"Breathe! Kid, _breathe_!" It was Jason yelling at him with words, real words. Yes, the swearing that followed was definitely Jason. The older boy must have slapped him, because there was sharp stinging suddenly up and down the left side of his face. But that was all—no worse than the stinging gashes still dripping red blood where the vines had bitten deep. His vision rocked sideways with the force of the slap, but he felt largely numb. It wasn't until Jason pressed a kiss to his shoulder, practically bit him, that the shock snapped him awake, and it was worse than the first time. So much worse. The bitter ice of the thing licked his bones. He arched back in Jason's grip, gasping, head back, sucking in air. The convulsion nearly dunked his head under water, and it was only then he realized they'd reached the bay, realized that Jason was in fact holding him afloat between the swells.

"You have to make a choice. You have to tell me you want this."

"Sorry." Tim tried to focus on the green eyes above him through the fog, tried to sort through the noise in his head. "Didn't mean… hurt Dick."

"I know. He knows. It was an accident. It doesn't matter." Jason shook him. "What do you want me to do?" The water lapped at his sides soothingly.

"Take me with you."

"Good kid." Then a wet hand wrapped around his mouth and nose and there was water pressing in around him, the light of the surface growing dimmer and dimmer. He couldn't tell how long they were like that, but long enough that he lost any sense of direction, drifting in and out with the shifting light that was always out of reach. If he thought about it, it couldn't have been too long, because he couldn't have held his breath that long. But there was a second mark on his other shoulder now, Jason's mark, and maybe that had something to do with it.

At some point his eyes slid shut, the patterns above him having long since blended into one gray blur, lolled off by the gentle sway of currents and the heart beating in the chest next to him. Maybe he would have stayed that way, drifting in darkness, but someone shook him sharply, probably Jason. It jolted him back to semi-awareness, groggy and disgruntled and acutely aware of the ache in his lungs, longing for air too long denied. He grasped weakly at the hand covering his mouth and nose, trying to pull it away, to breathe.

It didn't budge, but new, stronger arms wrapped around him suddenly, lifting him from Jason's hold, displacing him. Someone broader, sturdier, a dark shadow over him he could barely make out. He tried to clear his head, to make out the figure above him, cradling him, lips parting around soundless words, but the need for air was straining at his consciousness—a high, desperate crescendo clamoring for his concentration—and in comparison, everything else was a black and white, silent movie.

Finally, the hand wrapped around his face slid away, but before he could inhale any seawater, someone's mouth covered his, crushingly tight. Someone's lips caught his own, fierce, pulling the air from his lungs, stripping him of the last dredges of oxygen. He gasped up into the kiss, desperate, lungs burning, but there was no air in it, no air anywhere. He might have convulsed, because the arms around him were bars, holding him down, thicker than Dick's or Jason's. It was like drowning. It was like dying. The shadows tore themselves into black strips and drifted out of focus.

* * *

**Author Notes:** Too tired to even reread this before posting to make sure nothing got messed up during the upload, or catch any last minute bugs. Hopefully there aren't any. Unfortunately, (for reasons not explained here) I needed permission from another author to post my other story and (due to life complications) she got back to me too late to post on Halloween or even by the end of that week. So I'm going to hold onto that one until Riptide is finished. Speaking of which, the last chapter is supposed to be due on Thanksgiving, and I won't be here. Won't even have internet access. So it's going to be late.

I considered that the merfolk in this world might have silver-tinted lips, like the marks, but ultimately set the idea aside. Another idea that got set aside: Jack's death. I initially intended to hold closer to the original storyline and let Jack die—a plot point that would have left Tim in the hands of our dear merfamily permanently, but in the midst of writing I realized that killing him served no real purpose. No lessons were learned, no problems were solved, and I don't really believe in pointless character deaths. He uh, he needed some character growth.

More importantly, because this fic is from Tim's point of view, there's a scene he didn't get to see in which Jack comes down to the shore looking for Tim (having finally realized he'd snuck off), only to run into a naked Jason (and I'm sure _that_ just did wonders for his impression of merfolk). I'm sure it was quite the amusing meeting too, with Jason trying to avoid gunshots and Jack demanding to know what he'd done with Tim.

There's a Hocus Pocus moment in here somewhere when Ivy prolongs her own youth by "sucking the _life_ out of little children!" *evil cackle*

**Next Time:** Tim's about to learn more about the merfolk than he ever wanted, and Jack never thought he'd have to adjust his family views quite like this.


	5. Family

**Chapter 5**

Family

Tim's memories of the following days were foggy, fading in and out of focus with all the discontinuity of a dream. If he was awake, if he was asleep, it was all the same, all blended together.

There was water—that was the one constant through it all—enveloping him. Sometimes he was floating in that void, that nothingness of sound and space, where he'd met Dick and everything seemed simpler, happier. More frequently there were rock walls rising up on every side, like one of the little underwater niches Dick had showed him. Watery light filtered in through tiny chinks in the rough stone ceiling overhead, keeping it one shade shy of dark. He lay curled in a rounded-out depression, watching the little streams of light flicker in and out as shadows swept by somewhere on the surface. All of it, everything he could see, had a distorted, rainbow sheen. Like the foam of bubbles that completely coated his legs, membrane thick, and squelched away as he shifted restlessly.

There were bubbles everywhere, sticky bubbles that didn't pop or float away to the surface, but clung like webbing between his fingers and crusted the surrounding rock, like someone had gathered all the sea foam together. Tim turned his face into that layer of foam, into the darkness.

It must have been a dream, because surely he would have drowned otherwise. Or maybe he was already dead. That would make sense, because he remembered drowning—little unpleasant pieces of pain and people that stuck to his memories. Someone's hands were wrapped around his throat, or no, they were arms holding him bar-like under the water. There was no more air and he was sucking in seawater, or no, he was gasping up into a large mouth pressed down crushingly against his own, claiming his death.

Sometimes Dick was there, lying on the rocks, head propped up on his hands, smiling patiently, watching. Sometimes it was Jason, sitting slouched against cold walls, arms crossed, feigning indifference. Sometimes he thought there was someone else just out of sight, blending with the shadows.

Their faces were distorted, like someone had placed rippled glass between them or a bent lens. Maybe it was the bubbles again, or just the distortion of dreams.

Sometimes he thought he heard voices, bits of meaningless conversation in the darkness.

"The boats stopped."

"What do you know, he actually did something useful."

Dreaming or dead or awake, it didn't matter. He lay unmoving, crushed in place by the weight of memories. They mixed in with the darkness so that sometimes Tim thought he was still there, still watching Dick bleed out, still holding the incriminating knife in his hand, still unable to stop it. Sometimes he could still feel the vines coiling tighter around him, crushing him. Sometimes it was everything since then that seemed like the dream. Was there anything to go back to? Anything to wake up for? He curled up tighter, scrunching his face up under the bridge of one arm.

The voices in the darkness whispered back and forth.

"Just checking in on the kid."

"Shouldn't someone–"

"Let him be."

Until finally, one day, the darkness wouldn't come. He lay curled in the bubbles again, in that underwater niche he always seemed to come back to. For a minute, he watched the way the foam stuck between his curled fingers, clinging and slipping away like soap when he lifted his hand. He stretched then, enjoying the pull of muscles kept too long still and the way the bubbles squirmed and shifted, somehow managing to cover him from the waist down despite his stretching. It was for the best, because it was in the midst of that stretch that he realized someone had removed his clothes. That didn't bother him as much as it should have—everything felt gray, overcast, drowned out by the dark memories chewing at him.

Restless, he propped himself up, watching expressionlessly as the rainbow sheen tinting the world swirled slowly across his vision. It was a film in the water, a thin slick, like oil, close enough he thought he could touch it. If he reached out… there was something there, his fingers could skim it, watch the rainbows ripple all around him. Frowning, he pushed a little and watched it give, breaking around his arm like the surface tension of water. If he pulled back, it instantly reknit, coming together seamlessly.

For a few minutes he let curiosity win out, running his fingers through it again and again, just feeling the sensation of it sliding over his skin, then mapping the curve of it, up, over, and around. Like a bubble.

Suddenly determined, he clawed at it, pushing first his arm through and then scrunching up his face as the thin tension broke over it. There was a chuckle from the shadows beyond, a deep rumble, and then his wavering free hand suddenly landed in someone else's—someone's much larger. It was so unexpected, he jerked back, but the larger hand closed around his, completely enfolding it, swallowing it whole, and it kept him from retreating. He pulled back as far as the length of his arm would allow, tugging faintly at the grip on his hand, but he was effectively stuck.

"None of that. There's nothing to be afraid of." The thin streams of light from the ceiling fell on thick arms, but cast the rest of the voice's owner into dark shadow. Tim hesitated, caught half in a half out, until the grip on his arm gently tugged him forward. With no other choice, he pushed his other arm through. There was something wrong with his legs, but when he turned to look, an equally large hand—the match of the first—caught his chin, tilting it up, turning his face toward the light for inspection. The large fingers nearly swallowing his jaw were surprisingly gentle, brushing away stray strands of hair that floated about his face. Tim knelt, mostly freed, in the foam of bubbles, tolerating the inspection while blinking curiously into the shadows.

"Come here. Let me see you." Both hands released him, coming up under his arms instead, lifting him past the light into the darkness beyond. And at last the shadows thinned and Tim could see something of the man who held him aloft. Only his skin was pale. The rest of the man was black, from the inky tips of his hair to the glittering obsidian of his tail, fanning out into smoky fins that drifted like a shroud along the floor. He blended right into the shadows. Not an easy feat considering his frame. The man was large—broad in a well-built way that left Tim dwarfed in his shadow, especially held up before him.

Tim could only stare. He knew this man. Or rather, from the little bits Dick had mentioned, there was only one logical person it could be.

"Bruce." He had never felt quite as small as he did then—never quite so aware that the large hands holding him aloft could have wrapped clean around his waist. Where they sprawled for support against well-built forearms, his fingers looked tiny. Looking into those dark blue eyes, assessing him, appraising him, he _felt_ tiny. He squirmed, scrunching up his toes, only…

He looked down.

Now that he was out of the bubbles, he could see. Where his legs should have been, there was a tail, covered in shimmering, scarlet scales, with fins like the finest gauze. Tim went still all at once, sucking in a deep breath—a breath dragged from thick water, and he didn't want to think about that because he was abruptly sure that this was not a dream, and those were fins—_he had fins_—and this was real.

Perhaps sensing the impending panic, Bruce's hands tightened. When Tim didn't make any move after that initial hunch into stillness, the man eyed him cautiously.

"Both Dick and Jason approved of you," he said. Tim had silvery marks on both shoulders now to prove it—the thought made him shiver. Bruce continued. "They were quite insistent." That didn't make any sense at all. Even amidst the chaotic tumble of his thoughts—they'd changed him, they'd _changed_ him—that stood out.

"I hurt them." He was grateful suddenly for Bruce's tight hold on him, grounding him. The man's deep voice was a calming undercurrent to the panic. "Why?"

"Dick thinks of you as a… brother. As one of us. That isn't conditional."

_What about you? _Had Bruce forgiven him so easily? But maybe he already had the answer to that.

"The third mark," he said instead. "You…" He didn't need confirmation. Bruce nodded anyway.

"We don't interfere in the affairs of the land-dwellers. But I couldn't very well waste all that willingness to break the rules they demonstrated when it came to rescuing you." For a brief moment he looked like a much-put-upon father, and for the first time since waking up Tim felt a sense of camaraderie with the man. This wasn't some cold, ruthless, master of the seas he was meeting; this was a father trying to protect his family. A father who was holding the child of the man responsible for hunting them. "My sons aside, I'm not yet convinced this was the right solution."

"You changed me." The words leaked through his attempt to control them, dry and desperate. Despite everything, he'd ended up one of them anyway. Tim reached down, pressing cautious fingertips to scarlet scales.

Somehow touching it made it real, and then he was flexing the muscles he could feel just below the crust of scales, feeling out the movement. Curiosity helped alleviate the alarm. Bruce eased his hold then, pulling Tim down onto his lap, one large arm wrapping around him, awkwardly comforting.

"It was the only way to save you."

Tim nodded, biting his lip. Jason had done what he had to. Tim had been lucky, really—lucky Jason hadn't left him to his fate after everything, lucky to have friends who could help, lucky Bruce had decided he was worth saving. "Thank you." He hugged the man, feeling inadequate, especially when his arms could only reach Bruce's sides. The fond pat on his back nearly knocked him loose.

He had barely just drawn back when an excited shout had him whipping around.

"Tim!" There was a bright flash of blue out of the corner of his eye, and then he was knocked through the water, drawn into another hug, crushingly tight. "We thought you'd never wake up!"

"Mmf." Tim squirmed uncomfortably, trying to extricate himself from Dick's clutches, and just that quickly the older boy's grip changed, holding him up at arm's length instead so brilliant blue eyes could look him up and down.

"Oh, no! This is terrible! Tim, how could you?" Dick's voice lowered to a scandalized hush. "You took after Jason's coloring!"

"Um…" Tim blinked, tail curling self-consciously.

"Don't listen to him. He's jealous." Jason had joined them. Tim had been so wrapped up by Dick he hadn't noticed.

Dick scoffed, and watching their friendly bickering, Tim felt a great swell of shame, because they were acting like nothing had happened. They were being considerate, and it only made the shame worse. There was a scar pale against Dick's abdomen, a thick line matching the width of a knife. How could they act like it was nothing when the reminder was right there?

Tim reached out suddenly, brushing fingertips over the silvering scar.

"Dick. I'm sorry, I…" But Dick clamped a hand over his mouth before he could get any further.

"No apology needed. It wasn't your fault. It was Ivy's. She was using you, but she's gone now and she'll never use anyone again. I'm just glad we got you back alright." When Tim tried to protest, Dick shook his head. "No. I don't want to hear another word about it. There are more important matters to deal with."

"Your father's been worried sick about you," Bruce said. "He waits on the beach for hours."

"Father?" Tim repeated blankly, then disbelievingly. "_Dad's_ been by the water?"

"The one and only," Jason replied.

"You should go with him."

"Tell him we didn't kill you. Before he gets any ideas."

"Can't I…" Tim looked around at the three of them, meeting eyes, because it felt like an end, like they were telling him to go away. "Can't I come back?"

"Of course!" Dick hugged him.

Bruce put a hand on his shoulder. "You're always welcome here, but you still have a home with your family. If you stay, your time will stop. You'll never get older."

"Jeez, grow up while you can, kid." Jason crossed his arms, aloof, until Dick decided that just wouldn't do, eyeing him warningly. "No," Jason said, seeing it coming and starting to back up. "No. Don't even think about… Oof." Dick caught him before he could escape, jerking him into the hug, crushing them all together. Tim laughed breathlessly, unable to escape Dick any more than Jason, not really wanting to.

"No evading your older-brother duties," Dick declared.

"_What_ older-brother…" Jason asked, finally pushing Dick off him, only to stop mid-sentence, having caught some indication from the other merman. "Oh."

If Tim had ever had older brothers before, he might have been concerned. As it was, he didn't, so it wasn't until Dick caught one arm at the same time Jason caught the other, framing him, trapping him, that he thought to worry.

"Tim…" Dick shared a look with Jason, amused, knowing. "Let's teach you how to swim."

* * *

"I can't do this." Tim swallowed, hovering behind one of the rocks that jutted up out of the water. His stomach twisted tighter in nervous knots. On the shore, Jack hovered by the waterline, face drawn with worry as he scanned the waves.

"He's waiting for you." Dick's hand was reassuring, a warm weight on his shoulder. Not reassuring enough though.

"I can't face him." Tim sunk down a little deeper in the water.

"Your dad's still alive, kid." Jason tousled his hair. "You should enjoy it while you can."

But Tim only shook his head frantically, wide-eyed. Dick and Jason shared a look, conspiratorial, and then their hands were on his waist, catching him before he could dart away.

"No, no, no…" But Jason and Dick weren't hearing any of it. They pushed him up, out of the water, onto the rock. Tim gasped, sucking in air. He tried to backpedal, digging white-knuckled fingers into the crags, but there were still hands there keeping him from retreating.

It was too late anyway.

He shivered as the water ran off him, back into the bay—shivered at the sensation of his tail dissolving, falling away with the water in glittering rivulets. It trickled off him like so much sand. He half expected it to tint the water ruby red, but the swells lapped clear as ever. Then it was gone, the last of the shimmering scales sloughing away, leaving only two legs ending in bare feet—leaving only a human boy bare on the black rocks.

He curled up, drawing his new legs up to his chest protectively, not wanting to turn, not wanting to see what his father thought of it. If it was revulsion painted across those familiar features, he didn't know what he'd do. But someone was splashing out into the water, and the fear melted a little when he looked up… and found nothing but relief.

"Tim!" Then his father was there, wrapping his coat around his shoulders, long enough to fall to his knees, and there were arms around him, lifting him up, holding him tight.

"Dad." Tim squirmed in the embrace, feet lifted completely off the rock and dangling helplessly in the air. Crushed against his father's chest, he thought Jack might never let him go. Part of him didn't want him to. Part of him was blushing, aware that Dick and Jason were still right there, watching.

The water dripped from his toes.

"You're just like… like Janet. Always drawn to the sea." Jack's hold became tighter if that were possible, possessively parental, and he had to swallow before continuing. "I don't know what I would have done if it had taken you from me too."

"You're not…" Tim pushed away a bit to look his father in the eyes. "You're not still going to hurt my friends, are you?"

"No," Jack said, and Tim relaxed a little. "No more hunting parties. No more boats. I promise."

"We'll hold you to that." Dick and Jason had surfaced, bobbing in the swells, looking every bit the exotic and dangerous creatures they were—like Tim was now. Jack nodded to them over Tim's shoulder.

"Thank you for bringing my son back to me."

"Don't lose him again." That was Jason.

Tim turned around as best he could in his father's hold, considering the man wasn't letting go anytime soon, facing his friends.

"I'll come back soon," he promised as Jack started to carry him away, trudging through the waves in his shoes.

"Not too soon." Dick grinned, starting to slip back into the water. "Don't forget to grow up."

"Never!" Tim waved until they disappeared, then turned his attention to the little eddies kicked up as Jack carried him safely across to the dry beach. Jack didn't set him down when they reached the shore though. He didn't set him down until they were halfway back up to the house, and Tim couldn't help but fidget a little nervously, feeling like a child dragged back home by his parents for punishment. He stepped lightly when he was finally let down, the smooth rock steps of the path hot on his feet, and shrugged the long coat more firmly around his shoulders.

"Am I still banned from going near the bay?"

"I don't see how it would do any good." Jack looked suddenly worried. "You, uh… don't need a certain amount of water or something, do you?"

Tim grinned. He considered lying for all of a second, just to make sure Jack didn't try banning him again, but he'd nearly gotten his father _killed_ not so many days ago. He shook his head. "They're my friends. I'd like to visit them."

"I think I'd like to come too." Jack muttered something about fishing boats, running a hand through his hair agitatedly, and Tim laughed, skipping a little to keep up, because he'd just given his father a whole new set of worries. The warm sun beat against his face.

"I'd like that."

Epilogue

Tim held perfectly still in the shadows beneath the dock, one hand pressed to the stinging gash along his side where the harpoon had nicked him. It trailed a faint red film. He should have been more careful. Brilliant red scales stuck out something awful in the water, and he hadn't yet mastered Dick and Jason's trick of hiding in plain sight.

He could hear Jack's angry shouts from somewhere above, muffled by the weight of water. It was the sound of an angry father protecting his son.

Tim would have used Jack's distraction to swim away, only…

Blue eyes stared down at him intently, not moving one bit from where he lay, flat out against the rocks at the bottom. He couldn't get the little girl to go away. She was _watching_ him, eyes fastened to his hiding spot, leaning so far over the dock the ends of her platinum hair trailed in the water. Tim tried not to twitch.

She was going to fall in if she kept leaning over like that and… too late.

No one heard it over all the shouting and the groaning of boats tethered in place. No one but Tim, floating below.

He hovered uncertainly in the shadows of the dock, watching the little blond girl valiantly trying to dog-paddle her head above water. It was technically his fault. She'd seen something, a shimmer of red in the water—Tim knew exactly what it must have looked like—and she'd had to get a closer look.

He waited another minute, hesitating, hoping half-heartedly that someone would see, that someone would come rescue her. Then one of the waves knocked her into a pillar and Tim couldn't wait any longer. The water was too cold and her sopping wet coat and boots were only dragging her down. He darted forward, catching her in his arms just as she slipped beneath the surface for the third time. Then he pushed her back up, choking and gasping and drenched, onto the dock. And finally, finally, someone noticed. There were hurried footsteps rattling the wooden boards of the dock, voices calling out.

"Stephanie! What happened?"

Tim hid, dropping back into deeper waters before anyone else could see him. Not like the damage hadn't already been done. It didn't surprise him when strong arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him farther back.

"I think you made an impression," Dick said, looking up. Above them, back on the dock, the little girl was already searching the water again from the safety of her father's arms, looking for her rescuer even as she was carried off.

"Bruce is going to kill me." He'd been seen by a human, nearly been the cause of her drowning, and gone back to save her. He wasn't even really supposed to be there. The longer he stayed in the water, where time hung suspended, the greater the gap between his actual age and his physical appearance. But he hadn't been able to stay out of the bay completely—it was an itch under thin skin where he could still feel the phantom plating of scales, a restlessness turning his head toward the sound of the ocean, the pounding of the waves.

Tim groaned. He was so screwed. Dick laughed, a pleasant ring in the depths.

"And so it starts."

* * *

**Author Notes:** And so we meet Stephanie… for point 3 seconds. Blame the beta fish for the bubble nest (well, that and an image I ran across of the Australian shoreline buried in some eight feet of foam—Google sea foam images, you'll find it). I had this image so clear in my mind, I almost wanted to draw it: Tim, curled in the bubbles, Dick and Jason watching, one on his stomach, head propped up on his hands, the other half turned away into the darkness. But alas, my drawing skills are not up to the task.

I hope there's nothing too strange in this chapter. My beta wasn't able to read it in time (my fault, I didn't get it to her enough in advance), and she's the one who usually points out when my ideas have gotten too crazy or when something happens too abruptly or doesn't make sense.

I'm also posting the first chapter of that Vamp AU I mentioned earlier, though my beta has convinced me to try an experiment and post it under the Young Justice cartoons category even though it's almost completely centered around the batfamily. Since it's AU no matter where I put it, and since I'm getting vibes that the bat-fans seem to be largely adverse to Fantasy AUs, I figured I might as well put it in with the rest of the AUs in YJ. This could be an absolutely terrible idea, but I'm about to find out.

Thanks to everyone for the support. Even the people who just read it and stared at me funny, but especially the reviewers. I appreciate it.


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